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Alert Driven Communications Management for Distance Learning. Dickson K.W. Chiu , Senior Member, IEEE Dickson Computer Systems, Hong Kong kwchiu@acm.org, dicksonchiu@ieee.org Samuel P.M. Choi School of Business and Administration, The Open University of Hong Kong. schoi@ouhk.edu.hk.
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Alert Driven Communications Management for Distance Learning Dickson K.W. Chiu, Senior Member, IEEE Dickson Computer Systems, Hong Kong kwchiu@acm.org, dicksonchiu@ieee.org Samuel P.M. Choi School of Business and Administration, The Open University of Hong Kong. schoi@ouhk.edu.hk
Introduction • Increasing mobility of students and educators • Awareness, accessibility, and responsiveness • Using innovative technology to facilitate learning • Process integration and data integration are required among education partners • Managed multi-channel communications • Alerts - urgent requests and critical messages • Experience from healthcare alert system • Alert Management System (AMS) • Routing, monitoring, and logging the alerts • Find suitable service - application specific considerations like costs, waiting time, service time
Stakeholders of Distance Learning: OUHK • Both human and computerized systems involved • Different degree of computerization
Main problems and requirements • Traditional communications are no longer adequate • online learning platforms • web-based administrative services • cellular phones and pagers • email or instant messenger • Main problems and requirements • Large number of messages require timely communication • Managed multi-channel communications • Seamless Integrations • Web Services supports both type of interaction in a single framework • Both human and computerized systems involved • Different degree of computerization
Role of Alerts in IS What are Alerts? • Different from general events, alerts have more specific attributes, e.g., urgency and service requirements. • Different from exceptions, they need not relate to abnormal behaviors. • asynchronously received by external events / exceptions, incoming E-service requests • synchronously generated by internal E-service application. • handled by the AMS by requesting services: • internal information systems • human service provider • external E-service providers
Phased System Implementation • Phase 1 – Call center support system • Phase 2 – Upgrade existing system to support also alerts • Tutoring and discussion system • Venue management system • Assignment management system • Student and tutor monitoring system • Complaint and exception management system
Defining the policies according to which the urgencies of the alert will evolve Example Alert Urgency Strategy Definition
Advantage from student’s perspective • full-time job during their part-time study • senior management positions: travel frequently • availability of flexible, anytime, anyplace help from tutors • though quality responses are often more important than the response time • AMS reliably routes their questions • finds alternative tutors for assistance • communications among peer students for discussions and group work • communicate with the course coordinator upon exceptions: assignment extensions, attending another tutorial class, changing the tutorial group, or even deferral of examinations and studies
Advantage from educator’s perspective • similar anytime anyplace requirement for the access and management of messages • AMS help keep track of the messages, esp. important and urgent ones • avoid being overwhelmed by the large amount of messages from the students • full-time course coordinators monitor the performance of the tutors (e.g. marking lateness)
Advantage from administrator’s perspective • coordinates the partner institutions’ communication with the students and the tutors • especially upon exceptions such as changes in tutorial venue and tutor absences or substitutions • call center automation • forming a tutor pool to answer student queries: better response time and substitution • monitor the tutors’ performance • data integration with the partner institutes
Conclusions • A conceptual model for specifying alerts based on the requirements of distance learning • A practical architecture for the AMS based on contemporary Web Services – supports human and programmatic interfaces • matching service providers to alert requirements • A mechanism for (re-)routing alerts and increasing their urgency when alerts are not acknowledged or processed within deadline. • Applicability for distance learning • flexible and reusable AMS can be plug into other systems
Future Work • Interfacing and platform-specific issues • Inter-relations among alerts • Failure of commitments and their relation to contract enforcement • managing the diary of the personnel with agents • Impact of cancellations, other possible exceptions • Tradeoff between quality/response time and cost, and service negotiation • Location dependent applications • Workforce management • Mobile CRM